54 KEMIN'ISCENCES OF A SPOETSMAN. 



mountains of Asia, and falls into the Black Sea about 

 700 miles from Constantinople. Amongst our game 

 birds we have none that can rival the cock pheasant 

 for the beauty of his plumage and the elegance of his 

 shape *, and when they have been hung a sufficient time 

 in the larder f they are esteemed a great delicacy for 

 the table. In my younger days, when pheasants were 

 scarcer than they are at present, when one formed part 

 of the second course, one or two of the tail feathers 

 were fixed in the bird. 



Since battue shooting has been so generally in fashion 

 for the last six or seven years, pheasants may be found 

 in abundance in most parts of England and in some 

 counties of Scotland and Ireland. I believe it is not 

 many years since pheasants were bred in the latter 

 country : my reason for stating this is that I resided for 

 two years in the south of Ireland, and shot much in the 

 counties of Carlow, Waterford, and sometimes in Wex- 

 ford and Wicklow, and I am quite certain I never once 

 saw a pheasant. At the present time some of the covers 

 in Ireland are well stocked with them, and we read in the 

 newspapers of sixty or seventy being killed at one day's 

 battue. 



"VMien you have decided on what part of your estate 

 you intend to shoot, on the 1st of October (usually the 



* "Ah ! -what avails his glossy varying dyes, 

 His purple crest, and scarlet circled eyes ; 

 The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, 

 His painted wings, arid breast that flames with gold." 



Pope's Windsor Forest. 

 t A friend of mine would never send a present of game, until he had 

 kept it the proper time for dressing, that justice might be done to it. 

 If he was alive what would he have thought of what I heard a lady say 

 to her gamekeeper, " Go out and shoot a pheasant for dinner to-day I " 



